Setting Up Your Sales Funnel: A Step-by-Step Guide

Here’s a fact: Not all the potential customers who stumble upon your landing page are ready to buy. That is why it’s essential to learn how to make a sales funnel that will get them to purchase down the road.

A good sales funnel will help you nurture your target audience throughout the customer journey up until they’re ready to make a purchase. When done right, it can increase your conversion rates.

Given the many benefits of setting up your sales funnel, you must start with one right now. If you want to learn how to make one successfully, then make sure to follow the steps below.

Step 1: Qualify Your Leads or Potential Customers

There are five ways to attract new customers that fit your marketing funnel:

Look at your business data.

One of the best ways to get prospects into the funnel is to reflect on your previous data.

You need to determine the type of potential customer that generates the most sales. While you can do this manually, you can also rely on your CRM to extract such data.

Master your customer profile.

You should know the prospective customers you wish to acquire by heart.

Start with the basic demographic data, such as age, gender, and salary. With such info, you can create a profile that fits your ideal customer and help them in the buying process.

Research more about your sales funnel.

Once you have the previous data and the demographics, it’s time to do a Google search. What are the sales and marketing strategies that work well for your leads?

Be careful with your lead magnet.

If you want to create a successful marketing campaign, you should throw your false hope out the door. Don’t waste your time on funnel prospects who won’t transform into buyers. Create a lead magnet that attracts your ideal buyers and repels the non-ideal ones.

Remember, about 60% of your leads won’t be interested in your product or service, so avoid dwelling on them.

Ask a lot of questions about your sales funnel.

Before you get started, it’s best to ask your sales team. This will help you learn about your potential clients, competitors, and products and services.

Step 2: Follow Up On Your Sales Funnel Prospects

Some business owners give up after one or two follow-ups. But if you wish to get higher conversion rates, you have to exert effort throughout all the sales funnel stages.

In fact, you need to have about 8 to 12 contact points to take a customer from the top of the funnel to the bottom of the funnel, where they’re about to buy something.

That said, you should persevere beyond the fourth contact. It’s easy to give up in the first place, but you shouldn’t because you’re slowly inching towards that well-needed conversion rate.

By the fifth contact, you would have been a factor on your prospects’ minds. You can nurture them slowly by the sixth contact, and by the next step, you eventually earn top-of-mind awareness.

By the ninth contact, you will find yourself almost at the end of the sales process. After all, this is the period when 90% of customers purchase your offer.

And after the 12th contact, you would have converted your client into a buyer.

Apart from making multiple follow-ups, having a great messaging strategy is vital for lead generation. You need to make one that:

• Educates your clients about your business and industry authority
• Understands your customers’ pain points
• Offers a product of value and delivers it
• Places a clear call to action

While it’s crucial to follow-up routinely, you don’t want your potential clients to feel like they’re drowning in landing pages.

For new prospects, you should start with email marketing after you obtain their details. Keep your email list in the loop by keeping your messages to just one to two times a week.

Step 3: Close the Sales!

Now that you have nurtured your leads throughout the various sales funnel stages, it’s time for you to proceed with the final stage — and that is to close the sale!

How you do this should depend on your offer and the resources you have.

First, you have to consider your desired outcome. What’s your goal? Do you want to get them to contact you through social media? Or do you wish to improve conversion rates by prodding them to complete the sale?

Next, you have to note what will inspire them to take action in that stage of the sales funnel. It can be a free trial, a discount, or a special offer.

Once you have identified these two factors, you’re sure to fulfill your sales funnel in no time.

Setting up a sales funnel is relatively easy as all you have to follow are these three steps. However, you should be careful and mindful at every stage if you wish to sell your product right at the first time.